In the production process of high quality print materials, such as magazines, newspapers or other periodicals, a stream of cut and folded signatures is transported from a cutting and folding section of a production line to a mailroom section, such as a bindery or a collator, for further processing. The transportation of the signatures from the folding section to the mailroom is usually performed by known stackers, bundlers, loggers, or roll devices after they have been folded and cut off a running web in the folding section. As the traveling speed of the signatures coming out of the folding section cutter is too high for direct further processing, the signatures have to be decelerated to form a shingled stream of signatures, before entering one of the aforementioned storage systems.
From U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,886 it is known to use deceleration drums having discontinuously rotating gripper arms which grip the leading edge of the signatures transported on a high speed tape, lift the signatures off the high speed tape, decelerate them and place them as a shingled stream on a conveyor belt running with a slower speed. Owing to the rotational and discontinuous movement of the gripper arms, the signatures slowed down by the apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,886 are subject to high centrifugal forces applying additional stress to the signatures.
From EP Patent Document No. 0 574 703 A1 it is further known to use a pair of rotating fan blades having pockets to which the signatures are directly fed by high speed tapes, in order to decelerate the signatures and arrange them as a shingled stream of signatures on a conveyor belt moving below the fan blades with a slower speed. Due to the principle of decelerating the signatures by feeding them into the fan blade pockets, the signatures are subject to high stress, because the kinetic energy of the signature is at least partially absorbed by the signature itself.